It looks like the San Jose Sharks will have to go on without forward Martin Havlat for the next 6-to-8 weeks, as the Czech forward suffered a torn hamstring this week in a freak accident climbing over the boards on a on-the-fly line change. The diagnosis was confirmed late on Wednesday night and it will come as a pretty significant blow to the team, as Havlat has been a productive member of the offense, when he has been in the line-up. The Sharks depth may be able to handle it down the stretch and they will likely benefit from a rested Havlat for the playoff push, which cannot be a bad thing in the big picture.
Havlat, going into Thursday night's action, ranks 235th in pool scoring with 2 goals and 13 assists in 27 games, which isn't a bad scoring rate, but it certainly isn't what the team was expecting in a deal that sent Dany Heatey in Minnesota's direction in the player swap. I don't think it's unfair to believe that the Sharks were hoping for another dynamic playmaker that would hover closer to a full point-per-game pace, rather than just half, especially with all the firepower around him.
Nevertheless, this will be a fairly significant loss to Allan S. and his bid to climb back into the top 10 of the draft standings. Allan took a huge dive from 3rd to 14th in a month's time, which was an incredible drop, thanks to some key injuries and some very slow play from his better players and going into Thursday night's games, he sits in 12th spot, 5 points out of the top 10. Havlat was bringing in half a point-per-game before the injury, so he will be missed, especially in a 6-to-8 week segment.
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